It is known that distribution houses, for example pharmaceutical houses, that distribute products for the person or for animals, use containers inside which jars or bottles are disposed, all containing the same product.
Hereafter, the term bottles shall include jars or other similar or comparable types of receptacles, or jars or bottles irrespective of the content and of the closing and/or sealing system.
One problem is to maximize the use of the space available in a container used to contain the bottles, which has a support plane and three lateral compartmental walls, while one side is open.
Another problem is to introduce into the container a precise and controlled number of bottles.
At present it is known to fill the containers manually, with high labor costs, or mechanically, even if with current systems the problems described above have not been solved.
For example, an apparatus is known that comprises a conveyor belt that consecutively transports a certain number of bottles toward a transfer zone where there is a thruster.
When, in the transfer zone, there is a certain number of bottles to be inserted into the container, the thruster thrusts the bottles into the container. In this case, the container has at least one support plane and three containing sides. When the thruster is not able to insert other bottles into the container because the container is full, the container is removed and closed.
Although this system is quite effective, it causes the bottles to be introduced into the container randomly, so one cannot be certain either that the space is used optimally or that the desired number of bottles have been introduced.
Another transfer apparatus is also known, comprising pick-up devices to pick up the bottles in organized rows in order to reposition them in the container.
These pick-up devices use suckers or grippers, which act in the upper part of the bottles to pick them up and subsequently deposit them in the desired position in the container.
Although it allows to obtain an acceptable saturation of the spaces and guarantees the desired number of bottles per container, this transfer apparatus is complex, takes a long time to set up and transfer, entails dangers of breaking the bottles and in any case does not guarantee an optimized saturation of the container.
One purpose of the present invention is to obtain a safe transfer apparatus, relatively simple, which requires little maintenance and is easily programmable.
Another purpose of the present invention is to obtain a transfer apparatus that guarantees maximum possible saturation of the spaces with every type and size of container, which does not entail danger of breakages, which is fast, reliable and easily set up.
The Applicant has devised, tested and embodied the present invention to overcome the shortcomings of the state of the art and to obtain these and other purposes and advantages.